Robert Bulwer-Lytton
Edward Robert Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, GCB, GCSI, GCIE, PC (8 November 1831 - 24 November 1891) was an English poet and British diplomat.Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. Web, Sep. 25, 2013. Life Overview Bulwer-Lytton, son of Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, was educated at Harrow and Bonn, and then was private secretary to his uncle (afterwards Lord Dalling and Bulwer), at Washington and Florence. Subsequently he held various diplomatic appointments at other European capitals. In 1873 he succeeded his father as baron, and in 1876 became Viceroy of India. He was created an Earl on his retirement in 1880, and was in 1887 appointed Ambassador at Paris, where he died in 1891. He valued himself much more as a poet than as a man of affairs; but, though he had in a considerable degree some of the qualities of a poet, he never quite succeeded in commanding the recognition of either the public or the critics. His writings, usually appearing under the pseudonym of "Owen Meredith," include Clytemnestra (1855), The Wanderer (1857), Lucile (1860), Chronicles and Characters (1868), Orval; or, The fool of time (1869), Fables in Song (1874), and King Poppy (1892). As Viceroy of India he introduced important reforms, and his dispatches were remarkable for their fine literary form.John William Cousin, "Lytton, Edward Robert Bulwer, 1st Earl Of Lytton," A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: Dent / New York: Dutton, 1910, 248. Wikisource, Web, Feb. 8, 2018. His long poem, Lucile, is said to have been published in 40 British and over 2,000 American editions, by more than 100 different publishers.Sidney F. Huttner, The Lucile Project, University of Iowa. Web, Sep. 24, 2013. Family, youth, education Bulwer-Lytton was a son of novelists Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, and Rosina Doyle (Wheeler), daughter of the early women's rights advocate Anna Doyle Wheeler. He was born in Hertford Street, Mayfair, on the 8th of November 1831. His parents split up when he was a small boy, and the separation was acrimonious. His mother, who under the laws of the time lost access to her children, caricatured his father in 1839 novel Cheveley; or, The man of honour. Many years later, when he was a young man, his father had his mother placed under restraint as insane, which led to public outcry and her liberation a few weeks later. She chronicled all this in her memoirs. Robert Lytton and his sister were brought up as children principally by a Miss Green. From his earliest childhood Lytton read voraciously and wrote copiously, quickly developing agenuine and intense love of literature and-a remarkable facility of expression.Stephen, 186. In 1840 the boy was sent to a school at Twickenham, in 1842 to another at Brighton, and in 1845 to Harrow School. In 1849 he left Harrow and studied for a year at Bonn with an English tutor, and on his return with another tutor in England. Career In 1850, he entered the diplomatic service as unpaid attaché to his uncle, Sir Henry Bulwer, who was then minister at Washington. His advance in the diplomatic service was continuous, his successive appointments being: (1) as 2nd secretary: 1852, Florence; 1854, Paris; 1857, The Hague; 1859, Vienna; (2) as 1st secretary or secretary of legation: 1863, Copenhagen; 1864, Athens; 1865, Lisbon; 1868, Madrid; 1868, Vienna; 1873, Paris; (3) as minister: 1875, Lisbon.Stephen, 187. In 1864, immediately before taking up his appointment at Athens, he married Edith, daughter of Edward Villiers, brother of the earl of Clarendon. In 1873, upon the death of his father, he succeeded to the peerage and the estate of Knebworth in Hertfordshire. Governor-General of India Early in 1875 Lord Lytton declined an offer of appointment as governor of Madras, and in November of that year he was nominated governor-general of India by Disraeli. The moment was critical in the history of India. In Central Asia the advance of Russia had continued so steadily and so rapidly that Shere Ali, the amir of Afghanistan, had determined to seek safety as the vassal of the tsar. Lytton went out to India with express instructions from the British government to recover the friendship of the amir if possible, and if not so to arrange matters on the north-west frontier as to be able to be indifferent to his hostility. For 18 months Lytton and his council made every effort to conciliate the friendship of the amir, but when a Russian agent was established at Kabul, while the mission of Sir Neville Chamberlain was forcibly denied entrance into the amir's dominions, no choice was left, between acknowledging the right of a subsidized ally of Great, Britain to place himself within Russian control and depriving' him of the office which he owed to British patronage and assistance. The inevitable war began in November 1878, and by the close of that year the forces prepared by Lytton for that purpose had achieved their task with extraordinary accuracy and economy. Shere Ali fled from Kabul, and shortly afterwards died, and once more it fell to the Indian government to make provision for the future of Afghanistan. By the treaty of Gandamak in May 1879 Yakub Khan, a son of Shere Ali, was recognized as amir, the main conditions agreed upon being that the districts of Kuram, Pishin and Sibi should be "assigned" to British administration, and the Khyber and other passes be under British control; that there should be a permanent British Resident at Kabul, and that the amir should be subsidized in an amount to be afterwards determined upon. The endeavorr of the Indian government was to leave the internal administration of Afghanistan as little affected as possible, but considerable risk was run in trusting so much, and especially the safety of a British envoy, to the power and the goodwill of Yakub Khan. Sir Louis Cavagnari, the British envoy, entered Kabul at the end of July, and was, with his staff, massacred in the rising which took place on 3 September. .The war of 1879-1880 immediately began, with;the occupation of Kandahar by Stewart and the advance upon Kabul by Roberts, and the military operations which followed were not concluded when Lytton resigned his office in April 1880.A complete account of Lytton's viceroyalty, and a lucid exposition of the principles of his government and the main outlines of his policy, may be found in Lord Lytton's Indian Administration, by his daughter, Lady Betty Balfour (London, 1899). The frontier policy which he adopted, after the method of a friendly and united Afghanistan under Yakub Khan had been tried and had failed, was that the Afghan kingdom should be destroyed. The province of Kandahar was to be occupied by Great Britain, and administered by a vassal chief, Shere Ali Khan, who was appointed "Wali" with a solemn guarantee of British support (withdrawn by the government succeeding Lytton's). The other points of the Indian frontier were to be made as secure as possible, and the provinces of Kabul and Herat were to be left absolutely to their own devices. In consequence of what had been said of Lytton by the leaders of the parliamentary opposition in England, it was impossible for him to retain his office under a government formed by them, and he accordingly resigned at the same time as the Beaconsfield ministry. This part of his policy was thereupon revoked. Abdur Rahman, proving himself the strongest of the claimants to the throne left vacant by Yakub Khan's deposition, became amir as the subsidized ally of the Indian government. The 2 most considerable events of Lytton's vice royalty, besides the Afghan wars, were the assumption by Queen Victoria of the title of empress of India on 1 January 1877, and the famine which prevailed in various parts of India in 1876-78 . He satisfied himself that periodical famines must be expected in Indian history, and that constant preparation during years of comparative prosperity was the only condition whereby their destructiveness could be modified.. Accordingly he obtained the appointment of the famine commission of 1878, to inquire, upon lines laid down by him, into available means of mitigation. Their report, made in 1880, is the foundation of the later system of irrigation, development of communications, and "famine insurance." The equalization and reduction of the salt duty were effected, and the abolition of the cotton duty commenced, during Lytton's term of office, and the system of Indian finance profoundly modified. by decentralization and the regulation of provincial responsibility, in all which matters Lytton enthusiastically supported Sir John Strachey, the financial member of his council. Final years Upon Lytton's resignation in 1880 an earldom was conferred upon him in recognition of his services as viceroy. He lived at Knebworth until 1887. In 1887 he was appointed to succeed Lord Lyons as ambassador at Paris, and held that office until his death in 1891. He died at Paris on 24 November 1891, of a clot of blood in the heart, when apparently recovering from a serious illness. He was succeeded by his son (born 1876) as earl. Writing Poetry Lytton is probably better known as a poet - under the pen name of "Owen Meredith" - than as a statesman. The friend who wrote the inscription for the monument to be erected to him at St Paul's described him as "a poet of many styles, each the expression of his habitual thoughts." Lucile, a novel in verse, presents a romantic style and considerable wit; and Glenaveril, which also contains many passages of great beauty and much poetic thought, has much of the same narrative character. His metrical style was easy and copious, but not precise. It often gives the impression of having been produced with facility, because the flow of his thought carried him along, and of not having undergone prolonged or minute polish. It was frequently suggestive of the work of other poets, especially in his earlier productions. Meredith's poetry was extremely popular in his own day. His facility with verse was extraordinary and he was a great experimenter with form, although possibly to the detriment of finding his own style. Some of his best work is very beautiful, and much of it is of a melancholy nature, as this short extract from a poem called "A Soul's Loss" shows, where the poet bids farewell to a lover who has betrayed him: Child, I have no lips to chide thee. Take the blessing of a heart (Never more to beat beside thee!) Which in blessing breaks. Depart. Farewell! I that deified thee Dare not question what thou art. The list of his published works is as follows: Clytemnestra, and other poems, 1855; The Wanderer, 1858; Lucile, 1860; Serbski Pesrne; or, National songs of Serbia, 1861, Tannhauser (in collaboration with Julian Fane), 1861; Chronicles and Characters, 1867; Oroal; or. The fool of time, 1868; Fables in Song (2 volumes), 1874; Glenaveril, 1875; After Paradise; or, The Legend; Exile, and other poems, 1887; Marah, 1892; King Poppy, 1892. The 2 last-mentioned volumes were published posthumously. The most popular is Lucile, a verse novel published in 1860. Between 1860 and 1938, at least 2,000 editions and issues were released in the United States alone, by nearly 100 publishers. A few previously unpublished pieces are included in a volume of Selections published, with an introduction by Lady Betty Balfour, in 1894. Miscellaneous Besides his volumes of poetry, Lytton published in 1883 2 volumes of a biography of his father. The 2nd of these contains the beginning of the elder Lytton's unfinished novel, Qeville, and his life is brought down only to the year 1832, when he. was 26 years of age, so that the completion of the book upon the same scale would have required at least 4 more volumes. Lytton's appointment to the Parisian embassy caused the biography. of his father to be finally laid aside. The ezrecutrix of Lytton's mother chose to consider that the publication was injurious to that lady's memory, and issued a volume purporting to contain Bulwer-Lytton's letters to his wife. This Lytton suppressed by injunction, thereby procuring a fresh exposition of the law that the copyright in letters remains in the writer or his representatives, though the property in them belongs to the recipient. The Personal and Literary Letters of Robert, 1st Earl of Lytton, were edited by Lady Balfour and published in 1906. Critical introduction by Thomas Humphry Ward The first Earl of Lytton is an example of a combination rare in modern times—that of the politician, diplomatist, and administrator with the poet and man of letters. Such combinations were common three centuries ago, but in our day union of such different functions is apt to make people sceptical as to a man’s fitness for either. So, as Lord Lytton’s daughter, Lady Betty Balfour, points out in her introduction to a selection from his poems, when he was made Viceroy of India some critics doubted whether a poet could govern, and others doubted whether a ruler could be a good poet. We are not here called upon to declare for or against his success as administrator and ambassador; our concern is with his poetry alone. It is true, however, as his daughter remarks, that the circumstances of his career were in some respects against him as a poet. It is not easy for an exile to keep in touch with his home audience; if he is a man of books, books come more and more to be his substitute for the realities of life, as they, and meditation upon them, certainly did in Lord Lytton’s case. Hence his later poems, and especially the too long Glenaveril, had far less success than those volumes which “Owen Meredith” had published twenty or thirty years before. But faulty as they were, these later works contained many memorable lines, and they were, what the early works had not always been, original. Here we touch upon the objection which used to be commonly laid against the volumes previous to Fables in Song. Mrs. Browning, in a letter to the author, wrote, "You sympathise too much"; meaning thereby that he thought and wrote as others had done before him. Indeed, he depended too largely in these days upon George Sand, Victor Hugo, Browning, and many others; and what shall we say of a modern poet who could borrow the best-known line of Marlowe and make Aegisthus cry out to Clytemnestra, : “Make me immortal with one costly kiss”? But this fault he soon outgrew, and all the poems of middle and later life are free from it. Had our space permitted, we should have included in our selection a poem which throws a rather sad light upon the poet-statesman’s view of the two careers between which his life had been divided. This poem, "The Prisoner of Provence", is an adaptation of the story of The Man in the Iron Mask to Lord Lytton’s own case; and, written as it was a few weeks before his death, it seems to show that he valued the outward glory of State positions as but little in comparison with what had been denied him — acceptance as a distinguished poet at the hands of the experts first, and afterwards of the reading public throughout the empire.from Thomas Humphry Ward, "Critical Introduction: E. Robert Bulwer, Lord Lytton (Owen Meredith) (1831–1891)," The English Poets: Selections with critical introductions (edited by Thomas Humphry Ward). New York & London: Macmillan, 1880-1918. Web, Mar. 25, 2016. Recognition An extremely accomplished diplomat, who made friends wherever he served, Lytton was afforded the extraordinarily rare tribute - especially for an Englishman - of a state funeral in Paris. Lytton was highly thought of by other literary personalities of the day and Oscar Wilde dedicated Lady Windermere's Fan to him. 2 of his poems, "A Night in Italy" and "The Last Wish", were included in the Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900."A Night in Italy," Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900 (edited by Arthur Quiller-Couch). Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1919). Bartleby.com, Web, May 13, 2012."The Last Wish," Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900 (edited by Arthur Quiller-Couch). Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1919). Bartleby.com, Web, May 13, 2012. There is a permanent exhibition in Knebworth House, Hertfordshire, dedicated to Robert Bulwer-Lytton's diplomatic service in India. Knebworth House also contains many other fascinating artefacts which illuminate different periods, characters, including Charles Dickens and Winston Churchill, and episodes associated with the Lytton family's long and ongoing residence in what remains 1 of England's greatest stately homes. Publications Poetry (as Owen Meredith) * Clytemnestra, and other poems, London: Chapman & Hall, 1855; Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1866. *''The Wanderer. London: Chapman & Hall, 1859. * ''Tannhauser; or, The Battle of the Bards (with Julian Fane). London: 1861; * Lucile, London: Chapman & Hall, 1861; Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1862. *''Poems. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1863. *The Apple of Life. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1865. *''Chronicles and Characters. (2 volumes), London: Chapman & Hall, 1868. Volume I, Volume II. *''New Poems''. (2 volumes), Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1868. Volume I, Volume II. * Orval; or, The Fool of time. London: Chapman & Hall, 1869. *''Lucile, and other poems''. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1871; Boston: J.R. Osgood, 1871. *''Fables in Song''. (2 volumes), Edinburgh & London: William Blackwood, 1874. Volume I, Volume II. *"Poems: Historical and characteristic. London: Chapman & Hall, 1877. *''The Poetical Works of Owen Meredith (Robert, Lord Lytton)'' . Boston: J.R. Osgood, 1875; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1880; *''Glenaveril; or, The metamorphoses. London: John Murray, 1885; New York: D. Appleton, 1885. *The Earl's Return. Boston: Estes & Lauriat, 1886. * ''After Paradise; or, The legends of exile, and other poems. Boston: Estes & Lauriat, 1887. *''Poems of Owen Meredith (the Earl of Lytton). London & New York: Walter Scott, 1890. ;Posthumous * ''Marah, London: Longmans, Green, 1892 * King Poppy (a verse tale). London & New York: Longmans Green, 1892. * Selections (with introduction by Betty Balfour), 1894. Fiction * The Ring of Amasis: From the papers of a German physician. (2 volumes), London: Chapman & Hall, 1863; New York: Harper, 1863. Volume I, Volume II. *''Pausanias the Spartan: An unfinished historical romance. London: Routledge, 1875. Non-fiction. *Julian Fane: A memoir. London: John Murray, 1871. * ''Speeches of Edward Lord Lytton: With some of his political writings, hitherto unpublished, and a prefactory memoir by his son''. (2 volumes), Edinburgh & London: William Blackwood, 1874. [Volume I, Volume II.'' Translated * Serbski Pesme; or, National songs of Servia. London: Chapman & Hall, 1861. Collected editions * The Life, Letters and Literary Remains of Edward Bulwer, Lord Lytton. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, 1863. Volume I Letters *''Personal and Literary Letters of Robert first Earl of Lytton'' (edited by Betty Balfour). London & New York: Longmans Green, 1906. *''Letters from Owen Meredith (Robert, first Earl of Lytton) to Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning'' (edited by Aurelia Brooks Harlan & J. Lee Harlan). Waco, TX: Baylor University, 1956. *''The Birth of Rowland. An exchange of letters in 1865 between Robert Lytton and his wife'' (edited by Lady Emily Lutyens). London: Rupert Hart Davis, 1956. Except where noted, bibliographical information from WorldCat.Search results = au:Robert Bulwer-Lytton, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Sep. 24, 2013. See also * List of British poets References * . Wikisource, Web, Feb. 8, 2018. Notes External links ;Poems * Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton in the Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900: "A Night in Italy", "The Last Wish" *E. Robert Bulwer, Lord Lytton in The English Poets: An anthology: [http://www.bartleby.com/337/1407.html Athens (from After Paradise], "Andreomeda" **Extractz from The Wanderer: The Portrait, Spring and Winter, *Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton in A Victorian Anthology: "Aux Italiens," "Indian Love-Song," "Tempora Acta," "The Chess-Board," "The Dinner Hour," "The Legend of the Dead Lambs," "The Utmost" *Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton at Poetry Nook (62 poems) ;Prose * ;Books * *Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton at the Online Books Page *The LUCILE Project an academic effort to recover the publishing history of Lucile (which went through at least 2,000 editions by nearly 100 American publishers). ;About *Robert Bulwer-Lytton in the Encyclopædia Britannica. *His profile in ancestry.com *Lytton, Edward Robert Bulwer in the Dictionary of National Biography * . 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